Domain Data: Which Four Letter .COM Pattern Is the Most Valuable?

Data can help us make more informed decisions about our domaining activity, including which domains to acquire and which to sell at a specific time. One of the leading investment categories over the past twelve months has been the four-letter Chinese Premium .COM. This category has seen a dramatic increase in value from around $300 this time last year to a record high of over $2,000 per name at the end of 2015.

These prices are for any four letter Chinese Premium .COM domain without a pattern. Those names that include patterns are typically more valuable. But which pattern is the most popular? To find out, we’ve teamed up with @Michael Sumner of NameBio to analyse the data from several different four-letter .COM categories.
We are going to analyze the sales data from the past twelve months of eight different categories of patterns to see which has proved to be the most popular, and which could be considered to be the most valuable:

AAAA (example: BBBB.com)

AABB (example: BBCC.com)

ABAB (example: BCBC.com)

ABBA (example: BCCB.com)

ABBB (example: BCCC.com)

AAAB (example: BBBC.com)

ABAA (example: BCBB.com)

AABA (example: BBCB.com)

This data is gathered from public data that is listed at NameBio, for all patterned four-letter .COM domains that also include the letters a,e,i,o,u or v. It’s interesting to note that whilst NameBio have recorded 13,952 sales of four-letter .COMs within the last year, just 219 have one of the eight patterns mentioned above. This makes up just 1.6% of four-letter .COM sales.

AAAA

This pattern is extremely rare. With just 26 of these domain names available in the .COM extension, very few sales have ever been recorded. In fact, according to NameBio, only four public sales have occurred, with none taking place within the last year.

The domain vvvv.com sold for $22,100 in 2014. llll.com sold for $7,900 in 2008 and then again in 2012 for $8,505. The domain iiii.com was sold in 2004 at SnapNames for $1,500.

AABB

A total of 18 four-letter .COMs with the AABB pattern have been sold over the last year, for a total sales value of $132,832. This means an average sales price of $7,380. The highest sale within the last year was that of bboo.com for $18,400, which occurred at NameJet in November 2015. The lowest was vvtt.com for $2,600 in March 2016, again at NameJet.

This type of pattern seems to be one of the most valuable patterns of all, with investors worldwide buying into the rare “double double” pattern. Interestingly, out of 18 sales within the past year, 11 of the AABB patterned name sales occurred at NameJet.

ABAB

This pattern had 20 sales within the last year, with a total sales value of $115,268 and an average sales price of $5,763; around $1,600 less than the AABB pattern above. 70% of public sales within this category occurred at NameJet.

The highest sale was ieie.com, which sold for $11,000 at GoDaddy in September 2015. It’s interesting to note that in both this category and the AABB category above, the highest sales both contained vowels – something we’ve been repeatedly told isn’t desirable by a Chinese investor.

ABBA

Again, just 18 sales of ABBA patterned domains within the last year. The total sales value of this category is $79,281 with an average sales price of $4,405 per name. Both the total sales and average sales values of this category are down significantly, compared to AABB and ABAB.

The sale of toot.com for $31,805 at NameJet in January 2016 means the average price of this category is slightly distorted. Without taking this sale into consideration, the average sales price over the last year would be $2,792.

Aside from toot.com, the highest sales price was cnnc.com, which was sold at Sedo for $9,400. The lowest price was hvvh.com, which was sold at NameJet for $760 in May 2016.

ABBB

Moving on to the “treble” patterns, you’ll start to see a difference in both price and quantity compared with the “double” patterns above. In total, there were 44 ABBB sales within the past year, with a total sales value of $160,801. This means an average sales price of $3,655 per name.

At $14,999, the domain rccc.com was the most expensive ABBB purchase of the last year, with lvvv.com being the cheapest at $1,060 – sold at Flippa. From the data available so far, it seems that the ABBB pattern has a higher frequency of sales with a lower overall value.

AAAB

Similarly, the AAAB pattern has a higher frequency of sales than any double pattern, with 37 sales in the last 12 months. The total value of these 37 sales was $123,719, which means an average price per sale of $3,344. Surprisingly, jjje.com at just $679 was the lowest sales price in this category, with lllr.com being the highest sale at $8,300.

There are a few repeat sales of note in this category, including fffe.com which sold for $1,750 at Sedo in September 2015 before being sold at NameJet two months later for $4,350. The domain rrru.com has been sold three times within the past twelve months, for prices between $1,495 and $2,900.

ABAA

As with the category above, ABAA had 37 sales in the past year, but the combined sales value was just $88,203 at an average sales price of $2,384 per domain. This average sales price is reduced thanks to 14 sales below $1,000, the lowest being vdvv.com, which sold for $270 at NameJet in April 2016.

The highest sale in this category was ezee.com, which was sold to an end user for $20,500. Removing this sale brings the average sales price of the category down to $1,880 per name.

AABA

The final category is the one with the lowest average sales price and the highest frequency of sales. In the past year, 45 AABA domains were sold, according to NameBio. The total sales value was $77,019 with an average sales price of $1,712 per name.

At just $138, llel.com is the lowest sales price of the category – a domain that sold at 4.CN in July of 2015. The highest price paid for an AABA domain was $5,000 for wwpw.com, which sold at NameJet in May 2016.

Conclusions

Of course, the most valuable pattern is AAAA; with just 26 of these domains available, any sale of this type of name is very rare. Aside from this category, AABB seems to be the most popular, with a fairly low amount of these names being sold and a high average sales price.

I’m surprised to see that “triple” patterns such as AAAB or AABA have a higher frequency of trading with a lower average sales price.

All four letter .COMs have risen in price somewhat during the past 12 months, but patterns continue to see a higher average price.